DEATHGIGAS   30 October 2015

Eight years ago Naughty Dog gave us the Indiana Jones game we’ve always wanted with the creation of the Uncharted series, starring Nathan Drake and his constant companion, Sully. Of course, for anyone who has dipped their toes into this pool will know, calling it the Indiana Jones game that should have been really does not even begin to do this series justice.



Now Bluepoint Games, the company behind some of the more notable remasters for the PlayStation 3, including The God of War Collection, and The Ico and Shadow of The Colossus Collection, have thrown their considerable skill behind remastering three of the most iconic action/adventure games ever made.

And so the Uncharted series: Drake’s Fortune, Among Thieves and Drake’s Deception; make their PlayStation 4 debut in one of the best remaster collections to come out amidst the recent remaster craze. And just in time too, as Uncharted 4 will be rounding out Nathan Drake’s story next year.



In a nutshell, the games revolve around lovable rogue Nathan Drake and his globe-trotting adventures in search of mystical artifacts and mythical locales.

Drake’s Fortune is about finding Sir Francis Drake’s lost treasure and the fabled El Dorado, Among Thieves unearthed the location of Shambhala, and Drake’s Deception took a detour through the Arabian Desert in search of Irem. Of course these wouldn’t be adventure games without some truly wonderful platforming and puzzle sections, action set pieces that have put some movies to shame and bad guys out to foil your plans.



Saying any more would really be a spoiler to those who haven’t played the games and if you haven’t, why not?

The most notable aspect of a remaster is obviously the graphical upgrades as it doesn’t make much sense to remaster a game and not actually do anything about its visual component. Drake’s Fortune has received the most work in this regard. The game now sports high-definition textures and increased polygon counts on the characters and environments. It all looks much crisper with the jungle scenes visually popping. Ruins look fantastic in all their tumbled down glory, while foliage looks lush and verdant as plants sway gently in the breeze or as you walk through them. Nathan and Sully look fantastic thanks to the increased polygon count and reworked textures. So too does the veritable army of thugs on your trail as they have been given a workover as well.



Uncharted 2 looks even better than I remember it, especially the opening scene in the snow. The same level of care has been given to both this title and the third instalment as Bluepoint has to the first. For me Uncharted 2 is the pinnacle of the series in all respects. Naughty Dog got everything right in this chapter and it still has some of the most memorable sections of gaming ever. The exploration was amazing, the gunplay well balanced, and the level of detail strewn through each level is still unparalleled in many of today's current generation games. It’s a vibrant, believable world made all the more enthralling with a new lick of paint.



The improvements haven’t only been visually. All three games now run smoothly at a consistent sixty frames per second and the aiming mechanics, which varied from game to game, have been smoothed out as well.

A new difficulty mode has been added to each game as well for those that wish to test themselves even further, along with a speed-run mode for those looking to blitzkrieg through each title. Each game now has a comprehensive photo mode which is like a mini-Photoshop within the game. Hue, saturation, filters; so much of it can be changed for those that want to pose Nathan against some of the games more stunning backdrops. Just beware the look of derp that Nathan wears in Drake’s Fortune when you pan the camera around to focus on his face.

While the game takes a couple of minutes to install, once it’s done loading times are almost non-existent on all three titles. What’s even better is that at any time you can quit to each game's title menu, and from there load up any of the other games. Unlike some remasters you don’t have to quit the game entirely to the dashboard and load it up again just to pick one of the other titles. It’s a small but overly welcome addition to a multiple title remaster.



Noticeably absent, though understandably so, is the game's multiplayer components, including the co-op aspects of Among Thieves and Drake’s Fortune. The only network component the games now have, besides being able to be patched, is a stat mode so that you can compare your game stats with those of other players.

Never having played any of the multiplayer aspects of the games originally, I can’t say whether or not this is a terrible thing. They never seemed like games that needed them to me anyway.

Could this collection be better than it is?

Sure. They could have added the PS Vita game: Golden Abyss; into the remaster list to make it the most comprehensive collection on one platform. According to the developers though, this was not included because its story did not fit in with the three main game’s overarching story.

That argument does make sense since each game does feel like a movie and playing them back to back feels like one long story in Drake’s life leading up to an inevitable conclusion. This effect is helped along by design choices originally made by Naughty Dog to change Drake’s age between each successive game so that he looks suitably older by the third game compared to the first. Along with the recurring cast of characters, this helps to create the illusion of one cohesive world and tale.



Are there any problems with the collection?

Sure, some glitches do occur such as larger plants disappearing during a jungle section. It was an odd visual bug that I never saw happen again. Uncharted 3 retains the imprecise shooting of its original PlayStation outing. What I mean by this is that there were often times I would be shooting bad guys in the head only to have the bullets magically pass straight through them without registering any damage at all. Occasionally the bullets would fly wide of the mark as well, making me wonder if Nathan was sober at all.

It must be noted though, that I did play an unpatched version of the game; the patch that was released on launch did fix up some of the gunplay mechanics of the third game. While a little annoying, neither glitch was a deal breaker.

Regardless of how you feel about remasters, this is far and away the ideal example of how a remaster should be done. If you happen to fall into the camp of gamers who, for whatever reason, failed to play these games when they were originally released, then you need to play them now.

And if you’ve played them already, this is the best way to experience them again.